You’ve spent months working toward opening your brewery, now you’re finally ready for the public. How do you come out with a bang? Henry Thornhill and friends recently opened West Cork Brewing Company in Baltimore, Ireland. They share how to put on a successful opening night.

West Cork is renowned for its high quality food. Now quality craft beer also comes from West Cork.

West Cork Brewing was started in 2014 by three friends, Henry Thornhill, Dominic Casey, and Kevin Waugh, with just €15,000 (approx. US$12,000).

Although it’s a nanobrewery operating in the basement of Casey’s of Baltimore hotel, they knew they had to come out with a bang.

Here’s what they did for their grand opening:

T-shirts with brewery logo

Promotional photos on the wall

Nonstop tours of their brewery

Live music

Food pairings

Media was also a big part of West Cork’s grand opening. They had coverage in local and national newspapers as well as local radio stations. Here’s how you do it:

Send press releases before the event including lots of photos.

Invite media to attend the event.

Blitz social media.

Talk with friends of friends to make connections with media.

Keep up the momentum by leveraging coverage after the event.

Reflecting on the event, Henry has some suggestions for ways they could have improved:

Write a plan for media outreach.

Blitz local radio stations.

Decide on a goal for the evening.

“It’s good to have goals and then to work backwards from goals to see what kind of tactics you need to put in place.”